Extra-judicial execution is not "fighting crime". And when you classify every military aged male killed as a legitimate target, you have no grounds to be talking about who is or isn't a human shield.
Nope, you can take your word games and stuff them where the sun don't shine. Groups like ISIS really do what to cut your head off even if you are a whiny socialist, they still don't like you, and they still want to kill you. They will kill everyone they can and someone needs to put those dogs down even if you sniff your nose and wag your finger at them. Sorry, but in the real world, out there in failed states, you don't have the option to pretend everything is neat, orderly, and tidy so hard choices have to be made for the greater good. That sometimes includes dropping a 1000lb bomb on Ackmed in his bomb factory even though he has his four wives and 17 kids in it with him. That isn't a nice choice but it sure is a necissary one and, yes, in the long run I bet it really does save lives especially the lives I care about most. If you aren't ready to make decisions like that then you aren't ready to be a leader in the real world. I, for one, won't condemn someone for having to make a tough call no one else wanted to make.
If you want to commit to "hard choices", then at least be honest about it and admit that you advocate abandoning presumption of innocence, aggression, murder and then lying about it all. Those words have important meanings. Their application is no "game", nor is their betrayal a trivial matter.
The sad thing is, Rick is actually right on this point about our military. Which is to say that they've been keeping their numbers of collateral casualties down by claiming all military-aged males are militants. So the only ones they count as civilian casualties are women and children, as long as the male children are younger than 12 or something like that - they actually go pretty low for "military-aged." This is what they counted that American teenager as when they wound up killing him.
As opposed to Westmoreland's "war of attrition" in Vietnam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_count#Vietnam_War
i wasn't judging if the strikes are ethically right or not. however, they are useless. one down, 20 new ones follow. one civilian killed, 200 new ones are created. go figure. and no i won't go and lament mistakes of the past. the genie is out of the bottle. as for alternatives... every single one is less pleasant than the last one. i can only imagine two that could work: total quarantine (impossible and inhuman) and taking over 'those' countries completely and force education and perspectives on the young (totally and utterly impossible). other than that, just look at israel and blow that up to global proportions. that'll be the future. we can just strive to eliminate the worst of the worst and fail.
It is a war, dumb ass, you don't get the luxury of a fair trial. You do the best you can with the intelligence available and most of the time they get it right. If Ackmed gave a shit about his kids he wouldn't have kept them in a bomb factory. As it is, I won't cry for Ackmed's little bastards because Ackmed is a stone cold killer who's goal is to murder as many innocent people as possible so stopping terrorists like him takes priority in my mind. Sure, do what you can to minimize collateral damage but still pull the trigger. They are using human shields because they know it is an effective method so make it ineffective and they will be less likely to use it. If not, you still just set the terrorists back by knocking out key people. If you don't do this then the rate of terrorist attacks will get be higher. BTW Israel has had great success killing technicals like bomb makers and leaders. This has caused a years long decrease in terrorist attacks just like building the wall kept the terrorist filth out and caused suicide bombings to decrease dramatically.
And the problem with that is that since this "war" has no defined limits to its field of operations, calling it such arrogates to the US the right to kill anyone, anywhere in the world, entirely arbitrarily.
Which is exactly what Dinner, under one of his previous names, would have said during the Bush Administration's War on Terra.
I can't speak for the Europeans, but what interests me is the right wing opposition in the US. Take Ramen's thread, for example, which reeks of hypocrisy. We all know he only cares because, Obama. So the drone program is a huge gift to folks like him, because they can pretend that their opposition is grounded in principle, rather than politics. If Bush had made better use of the tool, he'd have been all for it. But, Obama bad, so it's best to criticize a program that enables us to strike at the head of terrorist groups while minimizing damage to others.
Meanwhile, Gul rubs his dick at the thought of the President he voted for being a real man and murdering kids in the name of the Democrat Party while rationalizing an endless war.
It would be interesting to know what Road to Damascus moment caused Ramen to suddenly discover there was a drone program that’s been in effect since 2002. Not that we can expect him to have the courage to tell us. He'll just slime up this thread now that his isn't getting enough traction.
Democrats have felt insecure since Bush invaded Iraq. "Why can't our guys be tough macho men!? " Now, when Obama uses the military to murder women and children, they get to feel like the Alpha Dogs. They can now beat their chests and grab their crotches with the same savagery as their Republican counterparts did not too long ago.
So now that Ramen has confirmed that he's as fascinated by men's dicks as Volpone, perhaps we can get back to the topic. Yes, drones personalize the military actions of our era, just as Matthew Brady's photos personalized the Civil War and television cameras personalized Vietnam. "Casualties" are not just numbers, but identifiable human beings. Is it possible to balance the fear that some future all-mechanized war will result in the machines taking over with the possibility that a more sensitized population will be less likely to wave their arms and make speeches about "parking lots"? I have no idea. I still think the solution is to lock the leaders in a room and walk away. A Saddam v Dubya cage match on pay-per-view might have spared several hundred thousand lives destroyed...
The epitome of class. He's pissing on dead children for the sake of trolling a lame duck. Not worth a single keystroke.
Fucking hilarious. War is now a given. It is a necessity. Violence and death rule the day. Leftforge has turned into WarMongerforge and they've gone totally insane. They hide it in cliches such as "it must be done," "it's better than nuking them," and the ever pathetic "b...b...Bush did it first!" And while innocent men, women, and children are turned inside-out by death from above, they rationalize it away or simply ignore it.
You're doing it too, but I agree that it is disturbing how often opposition to aggression in foreign policy is based solely on partisan politics rather than principle.
If you don't slap these people in the face with it, they'll pretend to look straight ahead while walking by as if they were ignoring a pauper on the street.
Kinda said all that in one quick sentence here... http://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/2690807/ That's basically what the plot of "Robot Jox", is. War is abolished, and each country picks a champion to ride in a giant robot, the robots fight, and the winner's country gets land and/or resources, and it's all televised as an international sport.
^Nah...the leaders themselves have to fight. Mutual agreement on the weapon(s) of choice, duel to the death.
